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Pentagon Awards $309 Million in Defense Contracts Wednesday

Raytheon and General Atomics win contracts.

The Department of Defense awarded only nine defense contracts Wednesday, worth a total of $308.9 million.

The day's biggest winner was privately held unmanned aerial vehicles manufacturer General Atomics, which landed a pair of Pentagon contracts worth nearly $134 million combined. GA will supply the U.S. Air Force with 38 MQ-9 Reaper Extended Range drones, an armed version of the company's more famous "Predator" drone. GA will also supply software for the Air Force Special Operations Command's fleet of Reapers.

As for publicly traded companies, however, only one won a contract Wednesday: Raytheon(NYSE:RTN). The defense contractor won a $16.3 million firm-fixed-price, foreign military sales contract to supply 22 modified improved target acquisition, or ITAS, systems for the Royal Saudi Land Forces' SWORD program, and three more for the Saudi Arabian National Guard. ITAS is an upgrade to the TOW anti-tank missile system, incorporating forward-looking infrared optics, a laser rangefinder, and other digital components to roughly double the effective range of TOW missile attacks, improving the weapon's accuracy as well.

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